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Tokyo Babylon

From Virtual Japan

Tokyo Babylon is a manga series that was created by a popular group known as Clamp. Clamp is a group of four manga artists that publish outside of the popular manga publishing fields. It is considered to be a shōjo manga, which means that it is aimed at girls from age 13 to age 18. The manga was created into a two part anime OVA series. OVA stands for original video anime and each episode is longer than a regular anime but shorter than a movie. A live action movie was also created from the series and was called Tokyo Babylon 1999. At this point it has not been released in the United States.

Plot

The series is set in Tokyo. In the series, Tokyo has become a terrible place that is covered with acts of rape, phone sex and religious sects that do things that remind people of the ancient city of Babylon. Subaru Sumeragi is a teenage boy who is the head of an ancient clan of mediums. These mediums do all they can to help human kind by contacting spirits that are not in this world.

Tokyo Babylon is told in two separate parts. Part one focuses on Saburu’s beginning. He is contacted by a construction company who is in charge of a project known as Project 5. The project is behind schedule, which costs the company a lot of money, due to murders that keep happening. The company, MCC Corp, contacts Saburu and asks him to come and perform an exorcism. They are sure that the murders keep occurring because of bad luck. Saburu goes to the company and tries to stop the murders using spells. What Suburu does not know is that the director, Shinji Nagumo, is the one killing employees, but no one suspects a thing. At one point during the fight, Suburu looks like he will be killed, but another medium steps in and saves him.

In the second part of the series, Subaru becomes a witness to a murder of women. Any woman that rides a specific train alone tends to be murdered. Subaru decides to help the police figure out who is committing the atrocities. He ends up meeting a woman who is gifted with the ability to look into the past. Together, the two of them set out to figure out who has been killing the innocent women.

Characters

Subaru Sumeragi – Subaru is a medium who is the youngest member of their family. He is committed to fighting crime, even though he is very shy and kind.

Hokuto Sumeragi – Hokuto is Subaru’s twin sister. She is the opposite of Subaru in that she is very outgoing and bold. She does not have the strength that Subaru does but she is powerful in her own right.

Seishirou Sakurazuka – Seishirou is a veterinarian who hides that he is an assassin. He acts extremely friendly towards Subaru, which leads the fans to wondering what Subaru will do when he finds out that Seishirou is actually an evil person.